Shadows
by GVBW
Summary: After the death of Raoule and Little Erik, Christine decides to follow her first love to the Americas. I encourage readers to read the Phantom books by Leroux and Susan Kay.
1. Chapter 1

SHADOWS

By G E Waldo

Rating: General audiences

Pairing: Erik/Christine

Time-line setting: Late 1890's, New York.

Author's note: Leroux's book has the Phantom disappearing at the end as if into thin air, leaving his fate unknown. In the Phantom of the Opera the musical it is much the same. At the end of Susan Kay's book, Christine Daae reluctantly leaves Erik as he is dying of heart failure. As much as I loved Kay's book, I've chosen to overlook her ending and continue this story as though Erik lived and escaped as he did in Leroux's book and in A. 's opera. I hope you enjoy it.

 _POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPO_

It had changed. A little.

It still looked the same in this first light of morning. She supposed she ought not to have come so early. No one was likely to be around. Still, as unchangingly severe as the external appearance still was, there was change present too on the _inside_ , she was certain.

So certain of the presently unseen changes within that she could sense it as she stood before its doors. _Feel_ it. Wonder at it; the knowledge that it had altered over time. Not a long time, but long enough. This great monument to an architect's vanity was somehow _less_. Bereft. Almost lonely.

She could well empathise as she was alone, now, once more. As _he_ had been.

But Christine, her blonde tendrils woven and twisted into a not unattractive, but more practical, bun and wearing her very British tweed skirt that swept the ground and her neatly buttoned high collar jacket - her travel clothes - entered the great black double doors of the Paris Opera House. She carried her own small stiff travel case. Within were only those items she had deemed worthy to keep with her: A heavier coat for the cooler climes of Paris in the fall plus a few other feminine garments, a red leather folder of various currencies, her diamond necklace (a gift from Raoule on their fifth wedding anniversary); a train schedule, and her cherished hairbrush and mirror that had belonged to her beloved mother, the two items of any value she had managed to salvage from her younger years. Before...

No, even before _that_.

She was greeted at the door by a young man she did not recognise. He held a grey-stained rag in his hand and Christine could smell the odor of silver tarnish. He seemed astonished to see anyone at this time of day. "I'm sorry, miss, the Opera House is closed at this time. You are not allowed in."

She nodded but did not retreat, "I'm looking for someone – perhaps you know her? Madame Giry."

"Well, yes, mademoiselle, she works here, yes but as I have said, we are not open."

Her old impatience with those of the servant/labour class reared its head and she, a little irritated now - "Is she _here?"_

The young fellow looked away and down a bit. He swallowed in his nervousness and Christine felt a tiny pang of guilt. She had tried to shed her more upper class expectations after Raoule's death but when one gets used to a way of living...it was so _hard_. Raoule had spoilt her in one way. She had never wanted for anything.

"Yes, she is here." He gestured (rather rudely Christine thought), over his shoulder with one extended thumb. "Madam Giry is in her office."

"Good." Christine gathered up her bag. The, she assumed, cleaning boy, offered to carry it for her with one unwashed hand. There was black beneath his nails. She refused his polite offer with a single shake of her head. "No thank you, I know the way."

" _My God!"_ Was the reaction of Madam Giry who, Christine decided, had hardly changed at all, hair a little greyer perhaps but still kept under strict obedience in a tight bun on the back of her head, and veritably whipped into submission by many hair-pins. "Christine Daae!" The older woman stood up and came around from the ornate and much waxed desk to greet her properly.

Christine smiled. Madam Giry had been an exacting Box Keeper and Opera House Manageress, often exercising her sharp wit in order to keep the foolish young dancers literally on their toes. But she had also been a friend, of sorts. And, most of all, Madame Giry had been the only one to particularly sympathise with her (and with _him_ ), during the terrible events of nine years ago.

"Madame Giry,"

The older woman waved off the formality with a black sleeved arm. Even now she wore her old Manageress outfit, a long black, unflattering dress and black heeled lace-up shoes. "Let's have none of that." But she did genuinely smile back. "Please call me Marguerite."

Christine had not known her first name then. "Then you must call me Christine. And it's de Chagny now."

"Oh, pardon, pardon, of course. And how is the Vicount himself faring if I may ask?"

Christine had explained many times already and it was no longer a shock to learn that people, most people from her past at least, did not know. "My husband passed away over a year ago I am afraid. An accident."

"I am sorry to hear of it. He was a good man but at least you have the comfort of your son. A fine lad I have heard..."

Christine listened to Madame Giry prattle on about the healing presence of the son she assumed Christine still held in her arms at night. With practised calm, for she had had much practise, Christine interrupted gently "My son died of consumption Madame Giry, seven years ago." _Seven years ago this very month in fact. My God, has it been_ _ **that**_ _long already?_

Marguerite put one hand over her heart. "Oh dear, my apologies my child. I had no idea! That is the most _dreadful_ news. How terrible for you my dear, please come and sit. I'll have Iacques bring us some tea..."

After Madame Giry's fussing had passed (a common reaction most had to the news she was a widow and (they assumed) still a grieving mother – "So young! You poor thing! How awful! Please come sit a while. You must feel so lost!" Christine had grown used to people thinking she was somehow helpless because she was so young a widow and because her son had died. It had been a terrible blow of course but she had grown used to it now, the idea of loss; the very personal experience of it. It tasted familiar on her tongue now. Not so bitter anymore either. She _had_ felt lost, of course, and sad after Little Erik (she had always called him that: _Little Erik_ ) and then six short years later, Raoule's passing. But she was fine _now_. However somehow being a widow and a mother bereft of her only child while being still young was apparently a _greater_ tragedy - in the opinion of others - than having become either as an old woman bent over and frail. Old, soon to be dying and also bereft of her son and then life-long companion. She had been motherless for six years and a widow for nineteen months and was surprised to find herself already feeling, as they sometimes said, _"over it."_

As terrible a blow as it had been losing Little Erik and then Raoule, she no longer felt devastated or sorrowful. She felt... _restless_ ).

When they were both sitting side by side on the thread-worn divan and drinking tea, Christine finally broached the subject which had drawn her to this place. Drawn her, tugged at her heart, yanked on her poor struggling soul against all her wishes and will for six long years.

"Madame G- I mean Marguerite...where is, that is...do you know...where...?"

She nodded to Christine and, it seemed, to herself as well. Of course she had expected this question. "I am afraid you're too late my dear."

Christine felt the ground beneath her give way and from the great chasm the wailing of the soulless shouted up at her _He's dead-He's dead-He's dead!You're too late-you're too late!_

Madame Giry saw the sudden paleness of her guest's face and took the younger woman's hand in hers. "No, no, Christine, no my dear, you misunderstand me. I mean he has gone _away_. He is no longer here."

Christine felt her heart begin to beat once more and the gaping hole in the world closed over under their feet with a grinding whisper to leave no trace. Madame Giry seemed not to have noticed anything at all had transpired. "Where is he?" She swallowed the thick lump of pain that had lodged in her throat, forcing it down into her stomach. She would digest it later. "Where did he go?"

Madam Giry rose and walked to her desk. From a small drawer she removed a ring of keys. Walking to a small side cupboard as tall as she was, and made of finer wood than the desk and fitted with ornate brass knobs, she inserted the key and turned it. Opening the door to reveal heaps of papers and leather files, she rummaged around underneath an especially dusty looking sheaf of papers and with drew a yellowed envelope.

Giry brought it to her and placed it into her hand. Christine examined it for a few seconds. It had been closed the old-fashioned way, with a seal of wax.

"From him," Giry explained, "to you."

The seal was unbroken.

"He made me promise that if you ever...well, he made me promise and I keep my promises." Marguerite sounded regretful now. "There was little else I could do for him after all."

Christine was desperate to open it but she did not. Instead she asked "When..?"

Giry sat back down but this time at her desk once more as though she sensed Christine was not going to share its contents with her anyway and Madame Giry was still of the mind to respect another's wishes if one called them friend. "Two weeks after he disappeared from the Opera House this was slipped under my door along with a note that begged me to give it to you if you should ever come looking."

Christine wondered "Why not post it to me?"

Giry shrugged. "I don't believe _he believed_ you would ever come looking. He was going to wait. I believe he would have waited for you forever, had circumstances been other than what they were. And so in a sense I suppose I waited with him. It was little enough to do and in the end the only thing I had to give."

She would open it, but not here. She had no idea what it might read. Suppose it was only a poem? Or a final word of goodbye or merely a wish for her happiness? "Marguerite, do you know...do you know anything? I mean about where he might have gone?"

"Rumours...conjecture." She leaned back in her chair and it creaked. Christine could hear no other sound in the room except her own breath and heartbeat. "If he was indeed needing to escape – and he _was_ of course needing to - I believe he would have left France altogether. Perhaps he crossed the Channel but they would probably have found him there sooner or later."

"What do you mean "they"?"

Giry's eyebrows rose to hide in her straight cut hair-line. "What do you possibly _think_ I mean child? He had murdered, more than once. He was a hunted man Christine. He had to flee."

"Where?"

Giry sighed with the heaviness of the memories finally forced to the surface, and her old ache of empathy for a man who had had experienced very nearly not a single kind word or gentle touch in his lifetime. "Where do they _all_ go who are in fear of their life here? Where do those who are hunted escape to?"

Christine understood. "You mean the Americas."

"I would say that is likely."

She would book passage, _today_ , as soon as she was finished her purposeful visit to the Opera House.

Which was all but finished now, "Thank you Madame Giry," she rose and gathered up her bag. "I'm afraid I must go now."

Madame Giry accompanied her to the entrance doors. The custodial boy Iacques must have finished up with his polishing of the silver rails as he was nowhere to be seen.

Giry held the heavy door opened for her guest and old friend. She had a final word "Be careful my dear."

"Yes, of course. Yes I will be." The new big passage ships could be uncomfortable things that carried as many lower class passengers as gentry.

"I mean with him, should you find him. He was not the man you thought he was and I'd venture to say he is even less now."

Christine slipped on her wool-lined Egyptian cotton gloves. It was a chilly day. "I know what he was." _He said he loved me. I'm sure I believed him._

"A man who killed to be with you, a man who hurt you when he thought you had betrayed him. And a man who was hated, threatened and ultimately driven from his home and country because of his love for you," Giry reminded her and then lowered her voice to a whisper that ironically made her last words all the more powerful. "I am convinced he _did_ love you. Beyond all measure or reason. And he lost you, didn't he?"

Christine stared at her, slightly horrified. "You think he would _harm_ me?" She did not believe it. He had been harsh with her, even cruel in his words but he had never struck her and never threatened to either.

"No, but in the frenzy of his hopeless devotion to you, _he_ might yet again be harmed." She nodded to the note settled inside Christine's bag. "If you find you do love him after all, then do him the honour of obeying his instructions in the note he left you."

Christine felt a wave of betrayal herself. "You _read_ it?"

"No, but I suspect I know what it says. Farewell Christine de Chagny."

The black doors to the Opera House closed and in their high gloss Christine saw her own face, distorted by the imperfections in their surface. She returned home to make final arrangements. She did not read the note.

The passage was rough and miserable, despite her being as comfortable as anyone could be in her private cabin aboard the steamer ship. The food was barely edible, the water stunk, and her fellow passengers were a mix of boorish new high society and those who were stuffy old-money sort. It was a miserable trip through-and-through. And still she did not read the note.

She never thought she would be so glad for there to be real earth-bound dust to settle itself upon the polished glow of her fine leather shoes. But there was a lot of dust here in America. Lots of dust and, she had to admit, lots of people. Almost as many as Paris or London or any large city she had been to in her still young life.

This was New York harbour. Filled with people, sounds, animals and almost every kind of odor one could imagine, many of them, she thought as her slightly upturned nose twitched and the intrusion of yet another (this one carried the stink of damp cellars), unpleasant stench. Waving down a passing cab drawn by a very proper looking cabby, Christine climbed in. The cabby did not step down to assist. _So he only looks proper_ Christine thought. She hoped some in New York were upper society or at least trained to respond to those who _were_. "I need a good hotel sir." She remarked, assuming her would know where. It was clear that she was new in the city and could not be expected to.

"Yes m. I kno'one at'll be suitable." She frowned at his accent. He'd said it "suit-ble" but she supposed she was in a new place and ignored its strangeness. "The Park Av'nue 'Otel. V'ry nice."

But he said by rote, she noticed, so he probably did not really knowing whether it was nice or awful. Christine never-the-less settled back into the seat.

He whistled at his animals and the rhythm of their hooves sang pleasantly in the back of her mind as she gazed out the windows at the passing alien - to her – city. They crossed an enormously long bridge over a wide, cold looking span of water and presently the cabby drove the team of horses swiftly beyond the noise and bustle of New York Harbour and into the quieter but still busy streets of what he said was 'New York Island'.

It was many more minutes later when he hauled back on the reigns and they stopped in front on an imposing but not altogether unpleasant looking hotel.

"'This'un caters ta' women." And in ever more clipped speech "'At'll be a dolla' Miss."

An exorbitant price. She picked a coin from her small change purse. "I only have a three dollar coin. Do you have change?"

He thought about it for a second or two then shook his head. "Naw miss. Uh don'carry change."

Christine suspected he was lying but handed over the coin. _She_ paid her debts, even to professional _thieves!_

The hotel was satisfactory if a bit vulgar in its desperation to impress in its square and imposing marble face. Inside a well dressed clerk, a middle aged man with thinning hair and a pleasant smile greeted her. "Good day Ma'am. May I be of service?"

"I would like a room please with a private"- Americans called them 'restrooms'. Ridiculous! One hardly entered them to _rest_ "With a private _restroom_ please."

"Certainly Ma'am, and how long will you be staying?"

Christine hesitated. She hadn't given thought to how long. She had all but flown from her previous home; the home she had made with Raoule; their beautiful home where she had never felt _at_ home, where her restlessness had caused her long-suffering husband unease and frequent unhappiness. She realised the patiently smiling clerk was still waiting for an answer. "I believe – um – I am not certain. Shall we say indefinitely?"

The clerk nodded, ever smiling. "Certainly Ma'am, that'll be one dollar fifty centers per night plus a five cent deposit for the bedding." He handed her an iron key. "Room 421 - fourth floor. The elevator is to your left by the stairs. Do you need assistance with your bags ma'am?"

Christine stopped to pick it up herself. "No thank you, I prefer to carry it myself."

He smiled even wider. "Of course ma'am, whatever you wish. Please let either myself or one of the maids know if there is anything at all you might need."

"Thank-you," Christine turned away, anxious to retreat to the privacy of her room and do what Americans did - put her feet up. Mostly she wanted to gather her thoughts.

Room 421 was clean and remarkably pleasant. This was not a place for the very rich after all, but still it was clean and the furnishings were tastefully made-up. She had wanted something more under-stated. She needed to get used to living as the more common people lived again. She was not poor by any means. On the contrary Raoule had kept her in luxury – in fact he had left her extremely wealthy; she wanted for nothing! But that is not what she had been born into and if she wanted to mix among the common folk she needed to look the part. If she wanted to find what she had come here hoping to find and she had no idea where she might find it.

Where she might find _him_.

But still she did not read the note. If Madam Giry had been present to ask why Christine was not sure she could explain it herself. The yellowed, and now much thumbed, envelope had been moved from her purse to her travel bag to her coat pocket to her hotel room's small writing table and back to her purse. And still she could not bring herself to open it!

Two weeks and nothing! She had spent a fortnight searching the dim streets and making discreet inquiries about mysterious men with a taste for expensive suits and secure, hidden lodgings. Most often she had been mortified to be met only with curious stares or raised eyebrows.

Christine threw her small purse onto the bed with fury. She was a fool! How could she believe she would simply be able to ask a few questions and find out what she needed to know? After all The Americas were very big. The country was enormous! How she even _hope_ to locate a single man, even such an unusual, exceptional man, in all these teeming hordes?

Christine threw herself down on the bed as well. All her efforts were for naught. She must have walked every street on the island and come up with not a single name or lead. All her frustrations and all her shattered dreams had culminated in this single moment and in an irresistible urge to cry her eyes out.

But she fiercely held in the tears. She had cried enough. Enough for a lifetime. She didn't _want_ to cry anymore! Crying solved nothing. Crying was the harbour of weaklings and children. Of _fools._

No, she wanted to be strong. She wanted only to live again. But _curse_ her restless spirit! She had lived, hadn't she? Hadn't she lived more than most, with beauty and position and wealth and her every desire granted by a household of servants and a doting husband? Hadn't she 'had it all', as the Americans said? And here she was, after weeks aboard a steam-ship, and weeks searching for him, all for nothing! Her restlessness had brought her nothing but grief. Why could she never learn? Why couldn't her heart ever be satisfied with what was in front of her?

Christine sat up on the edge of the soft bed and contemplated her situation. She could simply return home. Open up the house again. Bring back her servants and have her meals served to her, have her clothing and bedding laundered by other hands. Attend her friends' tedious parties. Go to the opera, buy new dresses and jewelry. Be just like the other fine ladies. Be like when Raoule was still at her side, urging her to 'enjoy life' and 'be content – 'put the awful dark past behind her and be happy!' And try as she might, she found it nearly impossible to do any of it.

Her one joy had been Little Erik. His large, expressive brown eyes, his dark curls and pearly skin – his intelligence and wit in one so young had been her only refuge in a life she remembered longing for with all her being and, when Raoule had swept into her dark thoughts, taken her hand and lead her into the sun; into his world of carriages and fine mansions, when she'd finally found her haven, had then found herself drifting and listless within its golden walls.

But she could try again, she thought. Try to conceal how dreadfully boring she found it all. How utterly pointless! What else was there now? _Where_ else had she to go? Perhaps she could learn not to hate it all so, as before? Perhaps she could find something useful to put her mind and money to? There was always charity work. Plenty of poor in need or in hunger in every nation after all. She could do some of that she supposed. No one in her life needed her now, after Little Erik and after Raoule.

And after _him_...

She could have a purpose again.

 _Yes!_

 _Yes!_ Tomorrow she would book passage home. For now she was feeling a renewal of purpose. And a bit hungry too, she realised. Christine slipped her fine white gloves back on her delicate fingers. She may even indulge in some wine, _if good wine can be_ _ **found**_ _on this side of the Atlantic,_ she thought ruefully. That was in serious doubt. But she would try.

 _POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPO_

Christine located a small French food restaurant that did in fact serve some passable bisque followed by some delicate basil salmon terrine and now she was finishing her meal by nibbling on a small vanilla éclair. Sipping from a very good dry French wine she was grateful to be enjoying the flavours of home. Once her meal had been consumed and paid for she stood and immediately grabbed hold of the chair's high wing-back, her head swimming a bit. Perhaps she ought not to have tasted the whole bottle herself! But it was no matter. Her hotel was only a short cab ride away.

But there were no cabs to be seen this night. She approached a passing man who gave the appearance of hurrying somewhere. "Pardon me sir, but have you seen any cabs nearby?"

"Eh? Naw, miss, no cabs tonight I think. There's a big match at the Square t'nite. Not likely ya'll find a cab."

"A match?" She asked, looking up and down the street anyway in hopes that the passing fellow might be wrong.

"Boxin' match. Big 'un too. Levine and Griffo'. All a'cabs'll be there I 'magine."

The man walked on. Christine looked around, a bit alarmed. It was growing late and the sun was almost down. She supposed she could walk. It wasn't too far, only eleven blocks away. She straightened her spine and began to walk in earnest in the direction of the Park Avenue Hotel.

 _POPOPOPOPOPOPOPO_

Only two short blocks from the welcoming light and warmth of the Park Avenue she was accosted by two rough looking men who demanded to know where she was going.

Christine moved to sweep passed them but one reached out and took her arm in a grip that showed no quarter while the other stepped in front of her path. "That's no' very polite, is it Ed?"

The other (Christine assumed it was the one called 'Ed"), answered in a mocking tone "No, it sure isn't, is it Pete? Fine lady like this though is prob'ly used ta' turning 'er nose up at the likes o'us."

Christine tried to free her arm but the man's grip was like iron. "Let me alone!" She cried, hoping someone would hear her.

'Pete' said "Now there's no'un about miss, they's all at the match see so there's no use n' sceamin'. Now you be a good girl un' 'and over that purse and we'll be on our way."

'Ed' licked his lips. Foul breath invaded her nostrils as he leaned in. "Let's not be too 'asty Pete. This ere's a fine lookin' filly and I could do wi'a bit o' sport."

Christine flushed in anger at the moniker one would only use in reference to a horse. "Unhand me you beasts!" She demanded.

'Ed' leaned in as though to kiss her cheek but instead with one unwashed hand he hooked claw-like fingers over her high buttoned collar and with a single wrenching tug he pulled, tearing the material and popping several of the buttons which flew into the gathering darkness.

Christine screamed.

In an instant of time the hands that had been pawing at her coat and skirt disappeared, the smell of the dirty, intruding breaths and their guttural speech was gone. Christine fell but on the way down she thought she heard the crunch of bone and the spurt of something wet that landed on the pavement nearby. Then a soft, moan of pain that died away in the night was the last thing she was aware of until all was dark and quiet.

Through her half lidded eyes, in the feeble glow of the nearby new electric street lights she saw a figure looming over her. A great cloak swished as it leaned over her and reaching with a single slender finger gently checked the pulse at her throat. "My angel..." she heard a soft, sorrowful sigh, almost a sob, " _Why_ couldn't you just leave me _be?"_

POPOPOPOPOPO

Chapter 2 asap


	2. Chapter 2

SHADOWS Chapter 2

By G.E Waldo

 _*For those who pointed out my error –spelling Raoul as Raoule – it is a correct variation although in the official books it IS spelled Raoul, so you are correct, thanks. However I'll stick with the latter spelling now. (I am Canadian after all and we love our "e's" and "u's")_

POPOPOPOPOPOPOPO

When Christine awoke she was lying on something soft. When she opened her eyes there was only darkness. Twilight's cloak had seemed to settle down over and around her, putting her immediately on edge. Her heart pounded uncomfortably.

But in that darkness a shadow born of light; a shape; a presence; something there-in like a face yet not. And in that presence two eyeholes watched her intently, patiently, like a cats eyes. Motionless but alive – always so alive! - peering into her soul.

"You're awake," they said and then Christine realised it was not the eyes speaking but him.

She struggled, somewhat groggily, to sit up and his hand restrained her. Sharply - "No!" he said but then softer, more controlled "You struck your head when you fell, you must be careful." He put one strong hand across her back. "Now then, sit up slowly but do not yet rise."

She did as she was asked. Tried to ignore the tone he still held in his voice, that force of command as though all who heard would instantly obey. She obeyed simply because it made no sense not to. He was correct of course, she was dizzy even sitting. And her stomach shifted angrily in a most unpleasant way.

She held one side of her head with one hand and rested the other on her stomach. "How long was I asleep?"

"Unconscious," he corrected, this time gently, "Almost twelve hours." She heard him rise from her bedside and walk away somewhere beyond the glow of the lantern. "I feared the worse." He added from the shadows of what seemed a large chamber. There was warmth nearby, a breeze of hot air wafting over her but she saw neither firelight nor hearth.

"I'm fine." Christine tried to sound more assured than she felt. Nothing was assured or fine at the moment, certainly not her _head_. Nor her heart she was quickly discovering. Nothing felt normal or calm, but even so she had _found_ him! Or, rather, he _her_. It didn't matter. "Where are we?" She could see little beyond the lantern light.

Suddenly it was lighter in the room and she saw he was standing near a far wall turning dials on a small pad. "Electric lighting," he explained. "I designed it myself." He walked toward her under three simple yet elegant overhead lights that were suspended from the ceiling in a row. Each hung from a cord and each was white frosted-looking glass that appeared to be etched with silver threads. They appeared almost like giant jewels one would find on a necklace. Or on a ring.

Then she turned her eyes back to Erik and he (as he always had) took her breath away. But then, nine years ago, she had been little more than a child, awestruck by his magnificent voice and his palace of canals and chambers and dark glory below the opera house.

She was a lady now. As an adult she tried to study him without seeming to, tried to see the real man behind the mask and not just a spectre or a memory, not merely a figure of hopes and dreams as he had been to her then.

He slowly strode back toward her, removing his cloak and draping it over an ornate chair and it was then she noticed that it was not a long cape now. Not the garment of a man of mystery and fear hiding himself away from the world, but a gentleman's cloak. Something one might wear when going out and about in the daylight, amidst the crowds, among _people!_ She wanted to ask him about it but something in his manner told her to keep her curiosity under control, for now. So she satisfied herself with observations of him and studied him with curious eyes.

He was tall still, of course, and as lithe and graceful in his movements as she remembered. Dressed in a trim, severely tailored black suit made of what she knew was very likely the best of Eastern silks. Beneath his trousers and vest was a crisply ironed white shirt that veritably glowed under the lights of the room. Yet he wore no bow tie and the upper shirt buttons were unfastened. Still, it suited him. She believed he could make a potato sack look fashionable. But taken together and presented as the man he was he made a looming figure of power and control, a man in perfect form physically (for the most part), and mentally sharp, walking idly across the Earth and through crowds of the imperfect as though nothing could influence or touch him, as though the world would bend to his will.

He bore down on her as a god might a kneeling child who had showed contrition. His eyes were all love and forgiveness. At least it seemed so at first. " _Why_ have you come here?" He sounded angry, frustrated.

And disappointed!

Suddenly Christine found herself speechless. Why indeed? Had she hoped to start again? Start _what_ exactly? Reignite something that had only burned briefly? But _oh_ how it had burned! Like a great fire in a black, moonless forest, like a lighting storm, like the sun! And then she had left him to die as Raoule took her in the boat and rowed it through those watery caverns into the light of his making.

Raoule's world. His riches. His extensive family and upper class connections. A life of wealth and ease that, at first she had swiftly grown used to, and then come to expect as though she had been born to it. And then, after the death of her son, she had grown to hate. What had seemed like a retreat into a shining paradise of freedom and sunshine became a shrunken prison fashioned from silver and gold.

 _He_ had never entered it physically of course but in her mind she had carried him all the while, to the great sorrow of her husband Raoule, who had loved her without reservation. He had even agreed to the name Erik for their son.

But that had sprouted a new set of resentments on both their parts. Raoule reassuring her time and again that it was fine; that it was a lovely name, after all, a perfect name for their son, all the while she could clearly see the looks Raoule sent Little Erik as the child grew. The hair that was shade too black for either side of their family. Eyes that had been brown and piercing, not sky blue or hazel as was hers and Raoules' respectively.

She had known of course that Little Erik had not been a product of her and Raoule's union. Had Raoule? She thought most probably yes. Christine felt no shame over it. She had made it clear to Raoule that she'd loved The Phantom _first_.

"Christine?"

She shook herself free from her reverie. "I'm sorry, my...my head..." An easy excuse still she felt a small pang of guilt for the lie, something else in which she had become used to, and rather good at, but not without misgivings. Raoule had seen through her assurances of contentment and love. Yet he had loved her completely. She often wondered if he indeed knew about Little Erik, if he had guessed, whether he had continued to love her _inside._ Society had placed great pressures on him to have a successful marriage, one which held up to scrutiny. Even if Raoule had wished to hate her in his heart, he would not have shown it to anyone else.

 _My poor Raoule. You deserved better._

"You should rest more," Big Erik cautioned. "A head injury can be dangerous if one exerts oneself too soon."

"Yes," She said and lay back down. Though she was anxious to learn of him and what adventures had befallen him (and perhaps what people had been unfortunate enough to have had _him_ befall _them_ ), and to know precisely where she was, but such things could wait until her headache was over. "Yes, I think I'll sleep a little." She needed to gather her wits. And she did feel sleepy again.

"Good," he sounded reassured. "And then we will have a conversation Christine de' Chagny, and you will answer me truthfully, yes?"

She had not expected the 'yes'. But she would. She _would_ tell him the truth. What possible point would there be to a lie at this stage? She _had,_ after all, come looking for him. She _had_ felt desperate to see him. Her attempts to locate him she had executed with little to no forethought. She had wanted to see him, so very, _very_ much, that articulating the reasons why, even now, escaped her. "Yes, Erik, I will tell you the truth," She closed her eyes, "my love."

And as she slipped into the bliss of dreamless sleep a sorrowful whisper followed her down. _"Do not call me that."_

POPOPOPOPOPOPOPO

She awoke to music. Not a pipe organ or a piano-forte', but a softly playing violin. Sweet tendrils of music wrapped themselves around troubled dreams and coaxed her to wakefulness. She opened her eyes and saw him standing across the room, with his back to her, the bow caressing the strings of the instrument with all the care a mother would show to her newborn infant. He was the picture of gentleness.

He was not wearing his mask! It lay on a small table to right, next to the chair that still held his cloak. She yawned a bit more loudly than necessary in order to alert him and placing the bow on the table he reached for his mask and put it on, fastening the silk ties at the back of his head. But before he managed to get the mask in place over his face and his skull, she noticed something - he seemed to have more hair than she remembered.

She decided that she was too tired to think about it. But she did feel better and her headache was greatly reduced.

Setting aside his violin on what she decided was a writing table by the bed he asked "How are you feeling?" But made no move toward her.

"Better," she yawned again, "much better, thank you."

"Do you wish to have some tea?"

Her stomach was not yet fully recovered however – "No thank you Erik."

"Very well. I am glad you are feeling better." Now he stood before her like a school master about to address a delinquent student. "And now, _why_ are you here?"

She stared up at him, trying to find the man she knew behind the mask. Trying to find the man she had loved, for that brief instant, back in Paris, back in the bowels of the opera house. A place that had meant more to her in the years that came after than anywhere else on earth. The man who had looked up at her with adoration and unbounded love as she writhed on top of him and moaned his name. "I wanted to find you."

He stared down inscrutably. His eyes spoke nothing but a sad weariness. "Raoule had died has he?"

"Yes." Yes, and as she had mourned him, she had planned her journey away from all they had known together. But her mourning was finished now. A new journey begins. "And all I could think of was getting to you I wanted-"

"You wanted what you have always wanted – your own way. You carried the body and face of a woman but coddled the fickle heart of a spoilt child! You say you loved me," He whispered sadly. "I wished so much to believe you."

She started at his scolding but then a growing anger nudged it aside. "It was _you_ who sent me away!" She suddenly stood to face him, their bodies nearly, but not quite, pressed together. She was no longer afraid of his height, his power, the way he used to hold sway over her mind and heart with his mystery, voice and praise. Because she remembered having sway over him too. She remembered his moans and grasping hands and how he whispered her name lovingly in her ear as they came together. _She_ had power too. _I know who I am!_

"I _did_ love you. I think I loved you more than anyone could ever love anyone!" Tears now, because yes, it was still alive, deep inside her, that all encompassing, raging love she had felt for him. The weighty conviction – the feeling of it, the _life_ of it, breathing into a solid and sordid creature in her soul; as though a Truth carved by hands: the gods had brought her to him and him to her and that command must thrive and bear fruit.

And yet they had parted ways. He had said 'Go' and she had obeyed. And fruit borne by that one night and day had only existed in the world not even two years. Christine was beginning to think the gods were insane.

But Erik was still taller by ten full inches and looked down on her without flinching. "I asked you to leave to save you!" He bellowed and then turned away from her as though to keep himself from striking her, "To keep you safe. To keep you from the life you would have lived with me. No life! It would have been no life, do you not see?"

"You didn't want me to leave but yet you asked me to go! Why Erik? Why when I would have stayed with you. I would have! I swear to _God_ I would have."

"And would you have stayed when Little Erik arrived? When there was no possibility for him to have a normal life?"

Her jaw dropped open. She swallowed for when the memory of Little Erik awoke it was always with a fist against her heart. Always with sorrow and shame and remorse. Sorrow at his passing. Shame that she had not been totally honest with Raoule and remorse that she had never told Little Erik about his real father. Why burden a child with things that could never be? "How did you find out?"

Erik chuckled to himself. There was no humour in it. "Do you truly believe I would not keep track of you? That I would forget or not watch over you? You were my salvation, Christine. And my curse as it turned out." He touched his violin tenderly, letting the calloused tips of his fingers glide over its fine wood surface. "And now you are my curse once more," he whispered and then louder so she would hear him "Why did you not read the note?"

No she had not. In her anxiety to get to him, she had decided not to, in case it read what she now feared it did. "No. I didn't want to. I was afraid-"

"-Of what it might say? Yes, I can see that. Difficult things...things that needed a grown woman's mind...for you they were...impossible."

Christine saw the truth of it. She turned to Raoule when she was frightened of things in the dark (scared of taking her place on the stage, worried about what others might think), turned to her mother when her favorite doll got broken, ran to her father when she was young and wished for something and her mother said no, crying in his arms until she got it. And now here she was turning to Erik, running after him, pursuing him across the ocean, when her world had changed and left her feeling hollow and pointless. Perhaps she was not as grown up and she believed herself to be.

"Yes," She said. "Yes, I was afraid to rely on my own thoughts, Erik, _then_. I was a child. I'm older now and despite what you might think I _have_ suffered. I know what pain and loss is - I'm not an _enfant gate'!*_ I just wanted..." She looked down and her hands, fingers twisted together, grasping each other. "I suppose I just wanted to see you again."

"And here you are," He countered and looked at his own, "and there is blood on my hands once more." He sighed heavily, a great intake of air as though to clean his body of something putrid. "I suppose I was a child myself at the time, of a sort. _Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait._ "**

"We are both older Erik."

He nodded sadly. "Yes, _perhaps_ we are both a bit wiser as well."

"How are you wiser?" She wanted to know. Was afraid to know.

"I did love you, completely. I almost gave up my life for you. I would have died for you but I have learned that love is a fickle god. It comes and goes on the wind."

"My love for you has never died or gone away."

"Mine too holds strong." He turned to her, his eyes saddened by knowledge and perhaps by age. "And what do we have Christine, for all our love? I have before me a young woman who, in her infantile want, refused to read the note I left her, and you have an older man who is still a murderer and a monster. Exactly what do we have?"

"How about each other? Do we not have at least that?"

Erik shook his head. "Don't you know where you are, my dear? You're in a great abandoned church. The stones are sound but the pews empty and rotting. This is a forgotten, musty, unloved old house of worship where even God doesn't come anymore. Go home Christine. Go home to your friends and home and servants. There is nothing for you here."

"There is _you_ here and I won't go!"

Erik nodded his head then but not to her. "Read the note. I have an appointment." He draped his great gentleman's coat about his strong shoulders and pulled the hood up so it obscured most of his face and mask. "I shall be out for a few hours. Wander, make yourself at home. The icebox is full and the pantry has plenty of tea and sweet dainties. But read the note. If you do nothing else for me ever in this life, read the damnable note!"

POPOPOPOPOPOPO

Christina took his offer of tea and sweets and sipped from a fine china cup. Butter cookies passed her lips one after another. Her stomach did not protest the sugar. In fact she felt a renewed energy and even sense of purpose. She wasn't going to come all this way only to go home.

But she finally broke the seal on the now much wrinkled and thumbed note and read:

' _Christine. By this time I am most likely dead or have moved away. Do not follow me. I have lost everything in Paris. There is no place for me here now. One final unsavory act to gain some traveling funds and I will be gone. Go and live your life. Prove to me you can make the right choice. Prove that you are brave enough to stay away. Raise our son well, teach him everything but not about me. Let him live a normal, happy life. Knowledge of me will only complicate it. I want my son to be_ _happy_ _._

 _If you do nothing else for me ever in this life, do this one thing and stay away!_

 _Yours, Erik'_

Christine put the note down on the mattress. She had failed him, in a sense, by not reading the note. Would she have _not_ come, if she had? She knew the truth of course. She would have come anyway. Probably she would have assumed he didn't mean it; that he needed her just as she thought she'd needed him. Erik was right; she had done exactly what she'd _wanted_ to do. What _he_ might want had not crossed her mind at all.

But hadn't she decided to abandon her search and return to France? It was he who had found _her._ Most people would call it coincidence but she didn't think so. Maybe somehow he had heard that she was in New York? Maybe he had been following her? Christine sighed, stood and stretched. What did it matter anyway? She was not returning to France. Erik did not appear to want her to stay with him in America. Suddenly she felt terribly depressed.

POPOPOPOPOPOPO

Erik entered the heavy doors of the public house as was his habit. Once per month he came here. Not to drown his sorrows or play billiards, nor to partake of the cheap stomach turning food that always seemed to run with grease, but to see if he _could_. And yes, as was usual, no-one hardly looked his way. New York, had had come to learn, was unique in that way; no one cared what you looked like or what you wore, not in the underground seething masses of the poor and desperate. People, men, came here to drink in peace and forget the wretchedness of their lives; to ignore the cold and hunger that waited only a few steps outside the door, if only for a while.

So Erik drank the bitter beer in peace and ordered another. And then a third.

No one here stared at him, at least, not after they'd had a good look and determined that he was no threat. Though better dressed than most of them, he was only one man, and most likely one _of_ them (if he was _here_ ), and so none in particular.

Once the pleasantly tingling sensation of the alcohol had made its mark, Erik dropped the few appropriate coins on the table and stood to leave bumping into a well dressed man he passed on his way in, a man quite well-dressed, more than any had any right to be in this part of the city. The man gasped but Erik hurried on. To stay and apologise would be more trouble than it was worth and besides he could feel the man's eyes locked on his back as he left. Dismissing the man from his thoughts, his mind returned to the problem of Christine. He stewed over it as his feet made haste to his next appointment.

A cabbie whipped his horses into a trot to take him across the river into an area that looked like it had once been more upper class but had now faded from the hungry eyes of the very rich. Still there still stood some elegant old homes here, only one of which drew him. And now that the sanitary reforms were in full force, the streets everywhere were cleaner. Business owners were required to clean the streets and walks in front of their establ9shements and home owners and tenement dwellers could no longer simply dump refuse out a window. Even six years ago, dead pigs would lie in gross pools of blood, decomposing in alleyways and human waste would be encountered smeared across ones path, sometimes neglecting to be cleaned up well into winter when it would freeze into grotesque (and dangerous) lumps of brown or blackened ice.

The deceptively simple act of cleaning up the streets had reduced the cases of cholera, typhus and tuberculosis dramatically.

Erik paid the cabbie an extra two dollars to wait thirty minutes and the man nodded politely. He was the cabbie Erik usually got at this time of night and was used to Erik's eccentric requests, sometimes even buying and delivering alcohol or groceries to a predetermined location. Generous tipping earned one a certain amount of loyalty in New York.

A two story brick home that had seen better days was his destination this night. A brass sign etched with a name hung in the window. This was "Brooklyn", an area which was quickly filling with the hordes of immigrants that were crossing the Atlantic in hopes of a better life. He could empathise somewhat.

The chilling wind banged the worn sign against the sign-post as Erik tapped the door knocker. Either sound would bring the lord of the manor around.

After a moment the door opened and the man greeted him pleasantly. "Erik? Excellent! On time as always," Smiling, the fellow stepped aside for his guest. "Please come in, you must cold. What a truly miserable night it is."

The man was correct. The night wind was a bitter mistress and Erik stepped inside gratefully. "Thank you, doctor."

POPOPOPOPOPOPOPO

Chapter 3 asap

* spoiled child

**If youth knew, if old age could."


End file.
